vegansaurus!

Order this delicious OCD Sweets candy for Easter! It’s not too late! I think!  »

I’m not exactly sure when Easter is because I’m a heathen and a glutton and don’t wait for holidays to gorge myself on all the treats [Ed note: It’s this Sunday, April 8!]. Anyway, I do know that OCD Sweets is the absolute best and I know this Hoppy Easter Vegg basket of sweets looks crazy amazing so I’m pretty sure you should get all up in it. DO IT.

Seriously, this stuff sells out ridiculously fast so get up on it because if you don’t, you’ll be all hella sad when everyone is eating candy and you’re eating a Clif Bar, TRUST. 

Vegan Easter candy round-up!  »

Hey pals! Easter is coming up! How about a vegan Easter round-up? Don’t mind if I do!

“Speckles” Chocolate Rice Crispy Bunny and Flavored Solid Vegan Eggs from Allison’s Gourmet. This bun is too cute! And I love crispies in my chocolate. These chocolates are also gluten-free and made with fair-trade cocoa. 

White Rabbit Ostara Hare Easter Bunny Vegan White Chocolate from Realist Mermaid on Etsy. These are also gluten-free! Who likes white chocolate? Not me! But I know some people do and this actually sounds really good. It’s flavored with organic Tahitian vanilla bean. Yum!

Vegan Easter assortment from No Whey Candies on Etsy! This collection looks AHMAYZING. 

And don’t forget your vegan creme eggs from Queen Balch! You know we love vegan creme eggs up in this piece. 

Look at this little guy! This Sjaak’s chocolate bunny is filled with almond butter! My mom loves her some almond butter. And this is great for kids with peanut allergies! A special treat. And you know Sjaak’s uses fair-trade and organic ingredients. 

For those not that into chocolate (you crazy bastards), Vegan Essentials has these cute sugar chicks and bunnies!

Vegan large Easter bunny girl from Chocolate Decadence! Such a pretty lady! This 12” chocolate statue stands up. Good lord! That’s a big bunny.

For you Peeps fans, Sweet and Sara’s Easter Skippers and Sunnys! These are so cute!

Vegan marshmallow chicks covered in chocolate! Dang, son! These look yums. 

From Rose City Chocolatier, a super cute hat box filled with Easter chocolate! This is adorbs. Any kid would die if you got them this!

For another basket, Indie Candy has this great pack of Easter goodies! I love the carrot lollipops, so cute. 

There you go guys, I hope you have a happy Easter if having a happy Easter is something you want!

Product Review: VonDulce Danish Candy!  »

I got some gratis samples of VonDulce’s handmade Danish candies to try! VonDulce is a vegan-owned business and the creator, Karolina Zakonek, gave me some awesome background info. While hard candies here in the states are often vegan-friendly, they are usually made with corn syrup. In contrast, check out the sugar Karolina uses:

[VonDulce candies] are made with Fair Trade, 100% Organic, Kosher, Evaporated Sugar Cane, which is not filtered through animal by-products, and produced under strict organic standards. The sugar is not treated with herbicides or synthetic fertilizers, and no chemicals or bleaching agents are used. The freshly squeezed Organic Sugar Cane Juice, is evaporated and crystalized on the same day it is harvested. The Sugar Mills are self sufficient, using the crushed cane stalks (called bagasse) as a fuel for the boilers, which generates electricity, so there is no need for fossil fuels. 

Holy crap that’s some serious sugar! Talk about guilt-free. And no bone char! Nice. I already like supporting vegan businesses but that sugar is just so cool, it makes it all the better. Yes, I’m talking about cool sugar.

Karolina grew up in Denmark where hard candy is a common treat. She learned to make these candies the old fashioned way and uses the same recipe candy-masters used in the late 1700s. She orders all her natural flavoring oils from a Danish supplier so she can get the purest ingredients available. She also doesn’t use plastic molds (which is how most candies are made) so you don’t have to worry about toxins and chemicals leaching into the sugar! Wow girl, you are thorough! I appreciate that. 

My official verdict: These candies are the yum! And SO PRETTY! My favorite flavor is the Lemon Pucker. It’s a great mix of sweet and lemony-sour but not too sour. It’s unique too, nothing like a lemon Jolly Rancher or what have you. The Berry Me and Peppermint were yum too. And if you like root beer, the Sassafras is for you! All the flavor of root beer in a little candy. And licorice fans have definitely found their match, apparently that is a Danish fave! Another note: these candies are gluten-free, gluten-free friends!

So if you want to support a vegan biz and eat some tasty, old-fashioned sweets, head over to VonDulce’s Etsy page and go crazy! Oh and hey, on VonDulce’s Facebook page, they are having a little caption contest and you can win candies before Valentine’s day! So check that out!

Vegansaurus giveaway: Allison’s Gourmet! Yes!!  »

Do you love amazing sweet treats? Are you obsessed with chocolates, caramels, peanut brittles, toffees, truffles, brownies, and everything delicious? If you did not answer yes to all of that then GET OFF THIS SITE! You should know, above all, that we love to eat, and that vegan sweets genius Allison’s Gourmet understands that need, and excels at execution! If you haven’t indulged in Allison’s treats, you’re really missing out. Not only will they kick the shit out of any omnivore treat in taste and appearance, all of Allison’s treats are fair-trade, vegan, and organic. I MEAN COME ON. Plus, her packaging is pretty enough that you don’t even have to wrap it. You’ll save millions of dollars on wrapping, for real.

Now, what are my personal favorites, you ask? SOPHIE’S CHOICE! But also, I cannot get enough of the mind-blowing Chocolate-Almond Toffee, the absolutely ridiculous Salted Chocolate Caramels, the perfectly sweet and rich Peppermint Bark, and the beautiful and extremely tasty truffles. Oh, and the peppermint drinking chocolate! Holy crap! So good! If anyone ever enrolls me in the brownie, cookie, or fudge of the month clubs, I promise to have all your babies or never have a baby with you, whichever you prefer. 

Now that you want to eat all of that, you might as well start with some freebies! The lovely Allison has generously offered a $20 Allison’s Gourmet gift certificate to one lucky Vegansaurus reader! For your chance to win, just tell me what your dream Allison’s Gourmet confection would be. Let your imagination run wild, you little vegan piggy. It can be mayonnaise peony, or peanut butter marshmallow sriracha for all we care! Actually, that second one might be pretty good, right? The winner will be chosen randomly next Friday, Dec. 16. Yay Allison’s Gourmet, we love you!!!

If you want to find out about more offers from the delightful Allison’s Gourmet, follow them on Twitter and Facebook DO IT! Now, let’s stare at truffles and caramels and be very happy:

Giving out vegan candy this Halloween? Don’t forget to add your house to the list!  »

Help the lil’ vegan kids have a happy halloween! Give out vegan candy and make sure they can find it by registering at No Trick Treats! My favorite vegan candy is of course Pennsylvania’s own Peanut Chews. Those are the yum. Is anyone giving out vegan candy? Oooo my brother gives out candy, I should totes make him go vegan this year and add him to the map! I’m getting one family member at a time!

Rock Candy Snack Shop in Bernal Heights! Hello, I love you.  »

Rock Candy Snack Shop is really cute, and you need to go there! Tons of vegan candies and chocolates and Halloween treats and it’s really adorable and owned by a super nice lady who is specifically catering to vegans so hey, like I said, go there, get fat, get happy, and LIVE YOUR LIFE IN STYLE!

And GET THIS BRITTLE FOR SURE, it’s SO GOOD, G’DAMN:

Rescue Chocolate: greatest company ever, order everything!  »

You guys all know about Rescue Chocolate, right?! If you don’t it’s probably because you’re less charitable and compassionate than I but it’s okay. I will illuminate you and in return, you owe me your first born. Now, don’t EVER EVER had a kid and we’re even stevens!

Rescue Chocolate is an all vegan chocolate company that donates 100% of their proceeds to animal rescue. HOW RAD IS THAT? And the actual chocolate? I tried it this weekend when I was in Portland (JEALOUS?) and it was SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD. I had the Peanut Butter Pit Bull, which I bought strictly because it has a cute-ass pit bull on it, and I was expecting to LIKE it but I LOVED it! Usually dark chocolate is just too bitter for me because I’m a delicate flower but this was SO good — peanut butter mixed with rice krispies (SO SMART) and then coated with creamy dark chocolate. It tasted like a high-class Butterfinger and you know what they say about those things: If you lay a finger on my Butterfinger, I’ll murder your whole family.

Order everything (or buy at a local store if you live somewhere great) because they really are the absolute greatest and all vegan and all delicious and about to be all mine, so HURRY!

Inside pic of a PBPB, GIVE IT TO ME:

UPDATE 9/2/11: I am bummed to find out that Rescue Chocolate isn’t on the Food Empowerment Project’s list of places that don’t use slave labor to get their chocolate. I am sorry I didn’t check the list first, because it’s such a good guide and I really do want to support places that are guaranteed happy for everyone. Rescue Chocolate, please use the good stuff so I can go back to ordering massive quantities on the reg!

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday!  »

You guys, I am so mad at Allen! Last night he left the lock to his gym locker in his car and had to run back and get it while I was changing in the gym. This totally wouldn’t have been a big deal if Allen and I didn’t share a locker when we go to the gym. Unfortunately, we do. So as Allen hustled (I imagine, he could have walked slowly to inflict maximum humiliation) back to the car I was left to watch our stuff. In my swim trunks. for five minutes. You guys see where I’m going with this? Here I am, in a room full of men in various stages of undress and I’m just sitting on a stool in my swim trunks, trying not to make eye contact with anyone so I don’t get reported to the staff for perving out half-naked at the local family gym. When Allen returned, he failed to see how this was an issue in any way. “It’s fine,” he said. “No one even noticed—probably.” And then he did this little giggle thing which made me realize that he probably knew exactly how I felt and not only did not empathize but also found it amusing. It took all of my energy not to drown him as we were Zumba-ing about the pool, but there would have been too many witnesses.

In addition to the above injustices, it appears that Allen also took the delicious cookies I purchased for myself yesterday to work with him. I have no proof of this (because Allen refuses to take my phone calls at work due to an unfortunate incident several months ago when I called to inform him that my Mii beat his Mii at running) but I cannot find my cookies, so I have decided to spent the rest of the afternoon seething and sighing loudly about the great wrongs that have been done to me. If I have enough energy, I will sit in the living room in the dark and when Allen comes home and asks me what is wrong, I will say “nothing” and storm off in a huff. That’ll teach him. Goddamnit, now I really want those cookies!

I am really angry now, and since it is unhealthy to reserve all of my anger for the one person I live with and get kicked by at night (oh, that’s another thing! It’s not a good night unless Allen kicks someone in his sleep!) I am going to project some of it further outwards and onto this one douchebag* who raped a cat and then threw it out a window. Seriously, if I have told you once I have told you a thousand times, stop having sex with animals. They can’t consent, and based on the charming personalities and physical appearances of the people who are trying to get into their (no) pants, I doubt they would be all that into it even if they could agree. Especially if you’re going to try to throw them out the window afterward. God, I bet to this guy throwing a cat out of the window after inserting himself into it was probably the equivalent of closing down all of your internet browsers (or ripping the VHS/DVD out of the machine) after you’ve finished doing what Deenie used to do in the bathtub. Oh wait, I am totally right! He threw a porno out of the window along with the cat. Awesome, so he murdered a cat  because he was feeling guilty. What a horrible human being. I hope he gets a lot of counseling while he spends a potential five years in jail.

Oh, before I go on I need to point out that I found the cookies and have now finished the entire packet. I blame this on Allen because if he had gotten back to me sooner, I would not have been craving them as much and would not have inhaled them with such alarming speed. Now I am on a sugar rush and will certainly have enough energy to sigh and flounce about when he comes home. Man, I am even angrier that i ate those cookies so fast that I didn’t even think to put them into soy milk. He is really going to get it for being so inconsiderate.

Gary the gourami is totally feling me on this one. That fish lived on Kit-Kats for a hella long time and then had to be tricked into eating fruits by having Kit-Kats stuffed into them in order for him to eat. That is for real. That is how I function. Allen is all, “Mark, here is some delicious broccoli!” and I am all, “IS THE BROCCOLI MADE OUT OF CANDY?! NEXT!” And then both Gary and I outgrow our tanks and people have to trick us into eating our fruits and vegetables and then we resent them for it. How big of a problem is it that I feel that if Gary and I were to meet we would totally kick it together and then get into a quickly spiraling co-dependent relationship that would end with lots and lots of tears and melted Kit-Kats? Should I be seeking help for this?

Now I need to take a nap. Please send me links for next week and try to spend the rest of today without trying to throw a party in a subway. Actually, no I’m not done. As someone who takes public transportation EVERYWHERE the idea of some hipsters invading a subway train and “partying” in it fills me with an unspecified amount of vitriol that I would like to spew all over them as my head turns around and around and around. That’s not cool, you guys. People have to go places!

Now I’m done!

*I spent like five minutes trying to come up with a better word, but this one is just so good! What would you have used?

Go Max Go announces peanut butter cups and new candy bar flavor!  »

Coming soon: two new chocolate candies from Go Max Go, “Cleo’s” and “SNAP!”

From their site:

Romeo and Juliet. Cleopatra and Antony. Peanut Butter and Chocolate. Some romances turn out better than others. At long last, our one-and-only rice-milk chocolatey coating cuddles the creamiest, dreamiest, peanut butter filling ever! So, if this combo makes you want to walk like an Egyptian, Cleo’s™ peanut butter cups are for you!

When your taste buds are ready to raise the roof and make some noise with a whole lotta toasty, crunchy, crisped rice POW! jammed into a hunk of rice-milk chocolatey BAM!, Holy Candy Bar!, prepare to be knocked out player, SNAP!™ is the bar for you!

The peanut butter cups are obviously self-explanatory but it sounds like SNAP! is basically a Hershey’s Krackle? Sounds like it. I used to love those but for some reason I’d only eat them on Halloween. I used to trade all my Raisinets for them because Raisinets are ick. You are all about to tell me you like Raisinets, aren’t you. You’re all crazy!